Hi,
I also noted that Goans are considered as Anglo-Indians in this piece :-)
tina
On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 3:00 PM, Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या
* فريدريك نورونيا wrote:
> Bigamy, the Raj and the scandal buried in Sir Cliff Richard's past
>
> By Alison Boshoff
> UPDATED: 08:39 GMT, 1 November 2011
>
> Sir Cliff Richard is famous for many things apart from his singing --
> his almost preternatural youthfulness, his Christian faith and, of
> course, his failure ever to marry.
>
> So it was rather a surprise when, in a recent interview with BBC Radio
> 4's Woman's Hour, the 71-year-old bachelor boy became involved in a
> discussion about bigamy.
>
> Sir Cliff announced -- quite out of the blue -- that his grandfather
> was a bigamist.
>
> Serenading his mother in 1960: Sir Cliff said he had never met any of
> his grandfather's other family after he revealed that his grandmother
> assumed her husband was killed in the war while he set up a new home
> in Coventry
>
> 'His wife, my mother's mother, thought he was killed in the war. It
> turns out that he left her and let everyone assume he was dead, and
> set up a new home in Coventry.'
>
> He added that he had never met any of this other family, only saying
> coyly: 'It's in my book.'
>
> But careful examination of Sir Cliff's substantial 2008 tome My Life,
> My Way reveals no information at all about a bigamist grandfather, or
> the family he went on to have.
>
> Instead, he fills 308 pages with a long and detailed celebration of
> his professional life and good works, but little about his personal
> and family life -- and certainly no bigamous skeletons.
>
> In fact, Sir Cliff has never before acknowledged such an intriguing
> element in his background -- which is probably why, as I discovered
> this week, many members of his 'other' family have died with no idea
> they were related to him.
>
> Even those still alive, and who know the truth, have never met him,
> although research showed he has numerous 'half-cousins' living in
> Britain, should he ever wish to find them.
>
> Young ones: Sir Cliff's grandad William, aged 44.
>
> Sir Cliff has never before acknowledged an intriguing element in his
> background -- which is probably why many members of his 'other' family
> have died with no idea they were related to him
>
> There are some other surprises in Cliff's family tree, too. For
> although he briskly told Woman's Hour that his mother was 'not
> Anglo-Indian' -- as has been suggested in the past -- and that he had
> instead an 'Anglo-Indian stepfather', it turns out that he does indeed
> have Anglo-Indian blood.
>
> The connection comes through his great-great grandmother, Emeline
> Josephine Rebeiro, the daughter of an Indian man from Goa, Vitriaus
> Rebeiro.
>
> One of Cliff's long-established full cousins from his mother's side of
> the family, Garth Gregory, tells me: 'My mother was Cliff's aunt. They
> were sisters -- my mother Olive and his mum Dorothy. And it is well
> known in the family that there was Indian blood.'
>
> Indeed, pictures of Cliff's mother Dorothy reveal a raving beauty in
> the mould of the late Anglo-Indian actress, Merle Oberon.
>
> So what is the truth about Sir Cliff's fractured family?
>
> He was born Harry Rodger Webb in Howrah, outside Calcutta, in 1940.
>
> His father, Rodger Webb, was a manager for a catering company and his
> mother, Dorothy Dazely, was a British woman who had been born in India
> to a military family.
>
> They came to England in 1948, joining thousands of British descent who
> left when India gained its independence. The family were 'destitute'
> at first; Rodger Webb had only £5 in his pocket. Cliff and his
> sisters, Donna,
>
> Jacqui and Joan, lived in a single room in Hertfordshire while their
> father sought work.
>
> 'Ours was the kind of hardship that either draws people more closely
> together, or splits them apart completely,' Cliff said.
>
> Cliff's Aunt Olive also emigrated from India and lived in Manchester
> and then in Essex. Olive's son, Cliff's cousin Garth, tells me that he
> saw the singer a few times in the early days, and remembers the star
> buying him a bicycle for Christmas, but then they lost touch.
>
> 'He is the star of the family, isn't he?' says Garth. 'I don't think
> my children have even met him. He's not in this country all that much
> -- I don't think he's interested in his wider family.'
>
> Perhaps he should be, though, for it's quite a family tree. The key
> figure in the story is Cliff's maternal grandfather, William Edward
> Dazely. He was born in 1896 in Bombay to Edward Dazely, a driver with
> the 27th Battery Field Royal Artillery, and his wife, Daisy.
>
> Anglo-Indian blood: his great-great grandmother, Emeline Josephine
> Rebeiro, was the daughter of an Indian man from Goa, Vitriaus Rebeiro
>
> William, a serviceman, married a railway guard's daughter, Dorothy, in
> 1919 in Madras. There were two daughters: Cliff's mother, Dorothy, and
> her yo
